Lost Thoughts: “The End”

Thankfully, the whirlwind tour of Ohio and Indiana that the missus and I went on over the last week went off without a hitch and we got home in plenty of time to catch all of the Lost festivities. I even tempted fate and wore my What Would John Locke Do? T-shirt on the flight and throughout the evening. I’m still processing everything, but I will talk about a few thoughts from the series finale of one of the most intricate shows in the history of television.

I’m going to start off with the negatives, but trust me, they’re not that bad. After the craziness of episodes like “The Candidate” and “What They Died For” I thought the 2 and a half hour series finale was a little on the slow side. But, even after I say that, I think about everything they packed into the episode and I think what I was really missing was being on edge. With those episodes it seemed like so much was happening so fast that I really had to be on my game to keep up. For the most part, with “The End” I felt like I had a pretty good grasp on what was going to happen up until the last 20 minutes or so. Maybe the episode would have been okay without that extra half hour? Then again, I can’t think of what could use cutting.

My other complaint is that I’ve still got a lot of questions. I’m sure this is a big complaint amongst lots of fans, but I guess that’s just the nature of the beast. I read or heard somewhere that the producers said that viewers wouldn’t have everything explained to them because, like with life, you don’t always know what’s going on around you. I think we got a lot of the important answers, but I’m still wondering about what happened when the bomb went off (why did they and the van all jump to the future?) and smaller things (who got shot in the canoe?!). In my head, the writers and producers have all the answers to those and all our other questions, but they’re keeping tight lipped for the most part, which I can understand. They want their work to speak for itself and have some time to breath and really be absorbed.

Now, on to the positives. Wow, a lot happened in this episode. While I was hoping that the Dimension X stuff would have a different purpose, I actually proved to be somewhat correct back when I wrote about “Sundown” and theorized that the alternate reality was some kind of reward. Of course, I thought it was somehow set up by Smokey, but what are you gonna do? I’m sure a lot of people don’t like the whole heaven/purgatory aspect of the flash sidewayses and I admit I still don’t fully understand how everything works (if they all died at different times, how are they all on seemingly the same continuum in purgatory?), but I did like the resolution and explanation of how the two worlds were related.

I was super glad to see Lapidus survive. My dawg! Everyone kept trying to convince me that he was deadzo, but when you’ve got a big plane needing flying, you need a pilot. It was also fun to see everyone pop back up, but I’m sure I’m not the only one wondering why Michael and Walt weren’t included. I would guess it was some kind of scheduling conflict, but maybe not.

I could watch an entire show about Hurley and Ben hanging out on the island doing their thing. I have no idea what it would be about, but I’m sure I wouldn’t be alone in watching that.

I know I’m a sap, but seeing everyone together at the end was nice. I wonder if they will be moving on to a nicer, less murder-filled version of the island. Also, I wonder what will happen to Jack’s son in the after life.

I could probably go on and on, but at the end of the day, I feel like I just finished a really good book. Damon and Carlton mentioned something like that in the pre-show and I’ve got to agree. I like how it ended, even if it didn’t necessarily answer all my questions or go where I expected it to. The missus and I have a plan to re-watch the entire season in time for the release of the sixth season on DVD. Maybe I’ll get some more answers out of that or maybe more questions, but that’s kind of what I like about some of my other favorite pieces of fiction. All in all I’m a satisfied customer who is left wanting more, which is the best way to go out in my opinion.